Versatile, with Smoke on the Brain
by Catt-Lynn
Summary: Next generation fic about the intertwined relationships between the children of the original Hogwarts crew. What it's like to be a teenager in the Wizarding World after the war where you don't have a death wish... or maybe you do.
1. Little Routines

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Harry Potter, I am just a fan like you basking in nerdiness.**

* * *

Rose knew that it was utterly hopeless.

The sixteen year old girl sat at her vanity, frowning angrily at the mirror. In it was reflected a face that was much too young and much too ugly to be Rose's own. The usually bushy ginger head was now jet black. Her hair was long and silky, just like the way Rose always pictured when she imagined the perfect version of herself. However, usually in her mind the dark hair was accompanied by a soft porcelain complexion and a skinny little petite body. What Rose saw the mirrior now were bright red cheeks, worse than a cherry tomato, and revolting smears of brown freckles across her nose and cheeks.

Of course Rose knew that dying and straightening her hair wouldn't make a difference! Rose felt silly to have allowed herself to believe that it would. Why had she gotten so excited? She looked just as plain and stupid as she always did. She looked young… little.

_Little! _Rose was tired of always being little. She was sixteen and her father still thought of her as his _little_ girl! Her cousins still regarded her as sweet _little_ Rose! And her grandmother was the worst of all of them! Rose and her cousin Lily, both with their red hair, were the daughters Molly Weasley loved! Rose would be forever _little_ to her because even though Rose was the older of Ron and Hermione's kids, Grandma Molly looked at Rose like a continuation of her _little_ Ginny, the youngest. To make it worse, Grandma was always mixing up Lily and Rose! Her two _little_ redheaded girls! And Lily was younger than Rose by two whole years! Rose did not like having those two extra years taken away from her.

Honestly, it infuriated Rose to no end. She would be coming of age next year and still everyone saw her as _little_.

"Rose?"

Rose jumped at the sound of her mother's voice calling from outside her door. She panicked, wondering how she could hide her change of appearance from her mother. Rose had been planning to reveal the change proudly to her family and let them all marvel at how beautiful and _mature _she looked, but now Rose realized that she didn't look beautiful or mature at all. She looked like a gothic Pippy Longstockings.

Before Rose could decide on any course of action, her mother had entered her room. Rose's cheeks turned bright red as she anticipated her mother's reaction. But apart from Hermione crinkling her nose in distaste at the smell of chemical in the room, Rose's mother didn't react much.

Hermione walked into Rose's room, closing the door carefully behind her and then went to perch herself on her daughter's bed.

"What's going on Rosie?" She asked gently.

Rose looked away from her mother, gazing instead at the numerous posters and pictures she had hung on her wall around her vanity. They were of her favorite bands, beautiful debutants, and of course lots of models. Rose liked to look at beautiful, successful people when she got dressed and ready to go out in the mornings. She liked to pretend she was one of them.

"I hate my hair." Rose finally sighed.

Hermione nodded. "I see that. You thought that punishing it might make it behave better?"

Rose scowled at the wall. She was in no mood for her mother to be trying to make her smile.

"I worked with the defective Pygmy Puff Uncle George gave to Hugo, didn't it?"

Rose heard her mum's chuckle and fought to keep herself from smiling too.

"Trust me, Rosie." Hermione said, trying to sound comforting. "Everyone hates their hair. You're lucky there's so much you can do to straighten and style yours. It's so pretty when you do it, I don't know why you'd want to change it. You're so lucky it's more manageable than mine!" Hermione laughed.

Rose was not tempted to laugh now. She had never understood how her mother was always able to laugh at herself like that, be so self-confident. Even in school, her father and uncle had told Rose, Hermione had been strong-willed and only believed in the facts. Popular opinion never caused her mother to even bat an eye. Rose supposed that that was what had made her mum a true Gryffindor.

So what was Rose's excuse?

"Come here, Rosie. Let me fix it?"

Rose noticed her mum pulling out her wand and sighed. Even though her black hair didn't look much better, it was still a change, an improvement no matter how slight. But Rose obediently crossed the room to sit in front of her mother without complaint.

"_Coma incline_." Rose her heard her mother say softly, waving her wand above Rose's head. Rose made a mental note of the spell so that she might look it up when she got back to school.

"There we go!" Hermione said, smiling. "Beautiful!"

Rose ran her fingers through her hair and smiled half-heartedly at her mother. Hermione wrapped her arms around her daughter lovingly.

"You're beautiful, Rosie. I don't know why you don't see it. I would've killed for your looks when I was your age."

Rose politely said nothing. Her mother shook her head.

"Dinner will be ready in about ten minutes. And don't forget that you need to finish packing your things up! We leave for King's Cross early tomorrow."

"Thanks, mum." Rose said, sliding out of her mother's arms so that she could resume the packing that she'd been doing before sneaking off to destroy her hair. Hermione smiled at her and left the room. Rose listened to her footsteps retreating down the hallway and then on down the stairs. Sighing, Rose went to collect a few of her favorite necklaces off her vanity to pack. At first, Rose only glanced at her reflection in the mirror, but then she looked back up to investigate closer. Her hair was red again, but not quite as harshly as it usually was. It was darker and there were slight highlights of brown in her hair. Rose smiled. It wasn't the perfect hair she invisioned, and she still looked young and_ little_, but it was touching that her mother had tried. That she listened to her daughter and cared.

Rose knew that she was lucky to have her family, but she'd be damned if there wasn't room for improvement. One couldn't be lucky with everything

* * *

Rose sat in the back of the car, bouncing excitedly in her seat as the family got closer and closer to their destination. Hugo sat next to her, most likely daydreaming about food or Quidditch. In the front of the car, Rose's mother was trying to convince her husband to **slow down**! He was well over the speed limit. Rose's father proclaimed that he was just fine and that he _was_ going the speed limit, though Rose knew her father was speeding on purpose. He got a thrill from being pulled over by a police officer and getting to show off that yeah, he had his license, and then confunding him to forget to give them a ticket.

Rose tuned them out and turned to look out the window. She started daydreaming.

It had happened six years ago.

Six years ago, Rose had been eleven years old, all excited to start her first year at Hogwarts! Hugo had complained jealously, but Rose barely heard him! She and her parents had searched through the smoke until they found the extended family. She could tell that her cousin Albus was nervous and she gave him an encouraging smile, though she was equally nervous. Al's older brother James was nowhere to be seen – something Rose counted as a blessing. She loved James, but he was quite certain he wasn't going to help her or Al's nerves any! Hugo paired up with Al's little sister Lily, both extremely jealous of Rose and Al. The adults talked and joked.

And that's when it had happened. Right when her father had been warning her about how she had better be in Gryffindor – jokingly, she hoped – it happened. The fog cleared and she saw him!

He was like a god, standing there so composed in the middle of all the mayhem. Rose watched him – so beautiful and refined in every slight movement. And he glanced her way! Her heart had sped up nervously, though it had no reason to. At the time, Rose had no clue what it meant, but as she grew and learned more about the ways of this wonderful world, Rose realized that it was love at first sight. She was positively infatuated with that sophisticated blonde, and she looked forward to whenever there might be the slightest chance to see him.

Her father had said something to her then about inheriting something from her mother, but Rose paid no attention, she was on a cloud. A beautiful sophisticated cloud.

That's where she was now, too, as she daydreamed on her way to King's Cross. She was on a cloud, lost in her fantasies about how this year her blonde god might notice her. Unlikely, sure, but that's why she had the spell her mom had used on her hair written on a slip of paper in her pocket.

"Rose?"

"Hmm?" Rose replied, turning to face her brother. Their mum and dad continued to bicker from the front seats. They always seemed to be bickering. It didn't worry Rose or Hugo though, their parents had always bickered. Their Uncle Harry had said that front day one, Ron and Hermione's favorite pastime had been bickering. "That and, well, umm, never mind."

"Why don't you try out for the Quidditch team this year?"

Rose rolled her eyes at her brother. He was always on her case about Quidditch. Hugo had inherited his mother's less than great coordination on a broom whereas Rose could hold her own even up against her cousin James and Teddy! But Rose simply wasn't interested in being on the team, something that her family – with the exception of her mother, and quite recently cousin Albus – was always on her about.

"Because, Hugo, if I make the team then I'm either going to have to sacrifice academically or socially. I don't wish to give up either." Rose replied, doing her best to sound scholarly and sophisticated.

Hugo pouted, "But Rose! We have a chance to win the cup this year now that most of Slytherin's good players are gone! It's just Al and Scorpius now and the two of them can't carry their whole team on their own! With you on Gryffindor's team Slytherin won't stand a chance! Even Al's got to know that!"

Rose rolled her eyes again. "I'll_ think_ about it." Rose replied, though she knew that she wouldn't. The only incentive she had to play (other than that she enjoyed it, but that obviously was not a good enough reason) was that perhaps she'd catch the attention of that certain blonde of hers! But she had debated on that and finally decided that although he might notice her playing Quidditch, there was too much of a chance that he would notice her in the wrong way. What if he saw her mess up and make a fool of herself? What if he thought she wasn't graceful in the sky? What if, what if, what if…? No, the ground was a much safer terrain for her to try to win his affections the correct way.

"We're here!" Hermione exclaimed, sounding extremely relieved. Ron was grumbling because, despite his efforts, he'd not been pulled over to show off his license. But he hopped out of the car with as much energy as the rest of them and pulled the kids trunks out of the back of the car.

Rose and Hugo hurried to load their things on their trolleys and sped off as quickly as possible to platforms nine and ten, getting quite far ahead of their parents. They waited impatiently between the two platforms for their slow parents. As soon as the family was all together, they carefully looked around and then boarded the platform by walking straight through a brick wall, one by one.

Almost immediately upon reaching the hidden side of the wall, the Weasley family was found by the Potter family and a big family reunion began. Aunt Ginny pinched Hugo's cheeks and started talking rapidly to Hermione while Uncle Harry and Ron "hit the rock." Lily rolled her eyes at the pair of them and then proceeded to demonstrate the proper method of the muggle greeting where the rock explodes after being hit. Rose immediately grabbed her cousin Al into a one-armed hug, admiring his "muggle scene boy" apparel while he blushed and muttered something about someone not appreciating him having his own taste in clothing.

Just as the greeting settled down and Rose started looking around the platform – very casually – to see if she might get a glimpse of her blonde god, she felt a pair of strong arms grab her from behind. She squeaked loudly in surprise.

"Relax Rose, just me!" A familiar voice said as the arms released her and Rose turned to face her best friend smiling widely.

"Jamie! Oh my gosh! I missed you!" She shouted, throwing her arms around her best friend's neck.

A slight man with perhaps the biggest smile you've ever seen stepped forward to join the group. "Hiyah Harry! Ron, Hermione, Ginny." Mr. Creevey, Jamie's dad, nodded at each of the adults in turn.

"Hey Dennis!"

"Hi!"

Hermione stepped forward to hug the man, "Where's your wife?"

"Oh, she's back talking to her sister, but Jamie wanted to come find you lot." Dennis gestured somewhere off in the distance where Rose assumed Mrs. Creevey must be.

The adults then continued on with the conversations, bringing Dennis into it with them, so none of them noticed Jamie's gasp as he noticed Albus's new look.

"Al, you look positively adorable!" Jamie commented, "Rose, did you do this?"

Rose laughed at Al's bright red face and shook her head, "No, I wish I did! He's pretty impressive isn't he? I wonder if Lily had anything to do with it?"

Al rolled his eyes at the two, "I'm not sitting with you guys if you're just going to make fun of me the whole ride!" He threatened, trying to be menacing.

"Oh shush, we're complimenting you, don't get so offended!"

The whistle blew on the Hogwarts Express, signaling for students and parents to hurry it up. Ron and Hermione gave each of their children a quick hug and kiss before waving them and the cousins off. On the train was crowded with kids all running around trying to find their friends and scrambling to say goodbye to family. Hugo and Lily took off to find their friends while Rose, Al, and Jamie pushed through the crowd to find an open compartment. Towards the middle of the train, the three were waved inside to a compartment by one of Rose and Jamie's Gryffindor friends, Lola Davies. The three smiled and obediently joined her in the compartment.

"Hey guys!" Lola said, bouncing in her seat excitedly the way that Rose had on her way to King's Cross.

"Hey Lola!" Al said, taking a seat next to her while Jamie and Rose sat across from them.

Lola and Rose shared the brains amongst their group of friends. Rose, like her mother, read constantly and always knew the facts and was always the first one done with her homework. Lola, on the other hand, was more street smart. Lola was no where near as interested in sophistication and beauty as Rose and Jamie, in fact she was quite the opposite. She was the daredevil of the class and was infinitely entertained by the shocked expressions Jamie and Rose had for her whenever she put no thought whatsoever into her outfit for the day. Today she was looking a little grungy, but Jamie and Rose only shared one glance about it, and then decided to let it go. It was the beginning of a new term, there would be plenty worse fashion mistakes up ahead.

"So how were your O.W.L.S? Do you know what classes you want to take this year?" Rose asked Lola anxiously as the train lurched into motion. She and Jamie had, of course, already gone over their scores together and debated on which classes they would take while maintaining maximum RJ time.

"Eh, they were okay I guess. I got an A in potions and charms, ick, I hate those two. I'm definitely not continuing with them! And, lemme think, oh Es in History, Astronomy and Herbology. But I'm so excited! I got an O for Transfiguration and Defense Against the Dark Arts! Those were the two I was really hoping to do well on! What about you? Oh, lemme guess, all O's?"

Rose shook her head sadly, "E in History. It was so close! But those goblin wars always throw me off! I completely mixed up Ragnok and Ragnuk! Ug and Urg gave me trouble, too, but I looked it up after the test and I think I got them right."

Albus made a show then of yawning, bored. "Whatever. O.W.L.S are done, please do not make me relive them!"

"Sorry cutie pie!" Jamie said, winking at Al.

Al made a face, "Seriously, I will leave this compartment."

Jamie just shrugged, thoroughly enjoying Al's discomfort with all the teasing. Rose ignored the exchange, she was standing up on her seat, reaching into her bag in the overhead storage. She found what she was looking for and sat back down triumphantly to show Jamie the magazine she'd gotten.

"Look!" She said excitedly, "Grandma and Grandpa – my mum's parents – they got me a subscription to this cool muggle magazine!"

Jamie shared Rose's excitement, "Aw, sweet! Muggle magazines are the best! My grandpa's got a ton too, but they're all muggle sports. He tries to teach me how to play all the time, but I just don't get it."

Lola rolled her eyes at her two friends, settling back in her seat to possibly take a quick nap. Al stretched out too, rubbing a sore muscle in his arm where his brother had "accidentally" punched him when he was home over the summer.

"Emu oil helps for that." A strange, light voice traveled into the compartment. Al looked up and smiled at his Slytherin friend Lysander Scamander. Lysander was a tallish, lanky boy with white-blonde hair that reached down between his chin and shoulders. He had a big white scar on his left cheek, which was how people told him apart from his twin brother Lorcan, who was a Ravenclaw like their mother.

Rose and Jamie could never decide if they approved of Lysander and Lorcan or not. Rose had a bit of a soft spot for the blonde hair and the two knew how to dress sharply, unfortunately their sense of accessory was sorely lacking. They wore strange talismans and pendants on chains around their necks, or occasionally odd little tiaras that were supposed to increase brainpower or something ridiculous. But the silly twins were nice enough, and their parents seemed to get along quite well with Rose and Al's parents, so Rose and Jamie had ultimately decided that being nice to the twins was a worthwhile effort. If nothing else, they were always good for a laugh, even if what they were saying wasn't meant to be funny.

"Emu? As in the birds?" Rose asked, crinkling her nose in distaste.

Lysander shrugged, "If you don't like birds then the horn of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack has healing powers too. Though, they're very hard to find, and mother says you must always be careful not to mistake an Erumpent horn for that of a Snorkck, that one will blow you up."

Al chuckled, fairly used to his friend going off on tangents such as these while Rose just shook her head. "How was your summer, Lysander?" Al asked. "Didn't you and your family go like all over the place?"

"Oh yes!" Lysander nodded. "It was quite a pleasant trip. We had to camp out in the Australian outback for a few weeks, following after a herd of Heffalumps, you see. Daddy snores quite loudly, Lorcan and I barely slept at all!" Despite the fact that he was relating an unfortunate detail, Lysander still beamed brightly, as though not being able to sleep because of his father's snoring was the most exciting thing in the world.

"Well that's too bad. Did you find the Heffalumps?"

Lysander shook his head, "Unfortunately no. Father made a mistake. Turns out we were following elephants, not nearly as exciting creatures as Heffalumps. Lorcan was the one to figure it out when he was talking to a nice native girl. She was telling him something about poo. I wasn't inclined to eavesdrop."

Al chuckled, but Lola, a tad annoyed with her nap being interrupted by such trivialities, was not as amused. "Lysander, was there a reason you stopped here?"

Lysander stood there thinking for a moment, forehead creased in though. "Yes there was, I'm trying to think…" He looked around, seemingly looking for something that might give him a clue as to his prior train of thought. He found his answer on his own robes in the form of a badge. "Oh yes, I recall, I was doing my rounds for the prefects, making sure all the first years were settled in and all, and I passed Scorpius. He wanted me to tell you," He looked at Al, "that he thinks Beatrice Zabini is trying to rape him… I told him that actions speak louder than words and in some Wogony clans rape is the highest form of compliment. He didn't seem to see my point though, just told me to help him find you. I think he was hiding somewhere more towards the back of the train…"

Rose, Jamie, and Lola all burst out laughing, both from the hilarious situation Scorpius seemed to have somehow gotten himself into and that his friend stood there quite stoically as though nothing was unusual about it at all. Al too found this all funny, but tried to hold it in.

"See?" he said pointedly, looking at Rose and Jamie. "I have better friends than you who need me more than I need you making fun of my cloths. Now, if you'll excuse me…" Al left the compartment swiftly while his cousin and her two friends continued to laugh. Lysander continued to stand in the doorway of the compartment, gazing out the window pensively.

When the three could breath again, Rose and Jamie went back to their magazine and Lola leaned back against the window, ready to settle down for her nap. She closed her eyes and made herself relax. She felt strange though, almost as though she were exposed. She peeked one eye open to see Lysander still standing there, now appraising her appearance.

"Uh, was there something else you wanted Ly?" She asked.

Lysander shook his head, "Oh no. I was just thinking that Rose's hair is the perfect shade of red, just like the heliopath's fire, and that if your hair was brown straw, Rose's hair would consume it in a second."

With that, Lysander turned back around, skipping out of the compartment, singing a song about lollipops. Lola frowned, not sure how to take Lysander's comment about her hair, until finally deciding that she didn't care. She was almost asleep when the sweets trolley rolled up and the friendly round lady who served the treats called out to them. Lola sighed as Rose and Jamie bounced out of the compartment, knowing that she was never going to get her nap.

* * *

It was a few hours after the feast and Rose was bent over Moaning Myrtle's toilet, puking her guts out. From outside of the stall she heard Jamie giggling as he tried to convince Moaning Myrtle to get contacts so everyone would be able to see her pretty little eyes better. Myrtle was not amused. Not by the girl puking in her home or the boy who seemed to have conveniently forgotten that as a ghost there wasn't much she could change about her appearance.

Rose wiped her mouth and flushed the toilet, walking out of the stall on shaky legs. She giggled at the sight of her best friend offering the ghost a smoke to loosen up while Myrtle pretended that the smoke hurt her lungs. Rose took the smoke from Jamie and sat down next to him.

This was a ritual Rose and Jamie did every year after the feast. Or really, they did it after any feast or whenever they were feeling fat. The two of them would head up to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom with some alcohol and cigarettes – sometimes they would run into other students with the same mindset as them and they'd have a big party – and Rose and Jamie would drink until they puked all their fatness out of them and smoke to loose their appetites. Third year was the year they had decided they need to do something drastic to stay beautiful and skinny, and this is what they had come up with – after much trial and error. Originally Rose had had the idea of the finger down the throat method, but both her and Jamie were too grossed out to make themselves throw up like that, so Jamie had been able to nick some alcohol off of James Potter one year and this became the tradition.

"Gawds, I fell loike shite." Jamie groaned, as Moaning Myrtle, fed up with his games, sat on – or rather in – his head.

"Yess, but you look safisticated." Rose said, slurring her words and certainly not sounding very sophisticated herself. But smoking and drinking made her old, not little. That was the point.

Rose suddenly started giggling very loudly. Jamie looked over to her, shivering slightly and giving her a questioning look. Rose shook her head, trying to make the words come out of her mouth, but unable to.

"You… you… you…"

She fell over on the floor, laughing hysterically.

"What?" Jamie asked, looking hurt. He looked down at himself, his cloths, and wondered what could possibly be so funny about his appearance that his best friend couldn't take him seriously all of a sudden.

"You… you have…"

Jamie frowned, looking at Rose with big sad eyes, but Rose didn't notice.

"You have… a butt! In your face! – There's a butt! – On your face!" She continued laughing, relieved to have finally been able to get the words out.

Jamie touching his hands to his face, horrified by the thought that his friend thought his face booked like a but, but his fingers felt the coldness and he remembered that Moaning Myrtle was sitting on his face! Jamie started laughing too, relieved that there was nothing seriously wrong.

Moaning Myrtle made a displeased noise and stalked away from them, heading towards her toilet. She stopped halfway, remembering that her toilet was now home to the contents of Rose's stomach and sighed angrily. She looked around for a place to go to escape the silly teenagers, and remembered with glee the prefects' bathroom! She floated off, hoping that perhaps the Slytherin Prefect might have fancied a bath that night.

"Ewww, Rose!" Jamie complained laughing, having not noticed Myrtle's departure. "Eww! Her butt was on my face!"

Rose laughed harder at first, and then felt something shift in her stomach. She paled, crawling towards the toilet to puke her guts out again.

Jamie's laughter calmed too at the sounds of Rose's gagging and he sat up straight again to light up another cigarette.

"Rose, you're beautiful!" He said seriously as his friend exited the stall. Rose giggled at him, then took his cigarette out of his hand and took a drag before giving it back.

"Did I ever tell you you're my bestest fwend?" Rose asked, giggling some more.

Jamie nodded his head vigorously. "Yes, yes! I am!"

"Good!" Rose laid down face-first on the cool bathroom floor, intent on taking a nap so the floor could stop spinning before she and Jamie returned to their dorms for the night.

* * *

The next morning found Rose dead asleep, sprawled out on her bed and Jamie sleeping curled in a tight ball near her feet. Per usual, Jamie had forgotten the way to his dorm in his drunken state and had ended up staying the night in Rose's dorm. The first few times it happened, the girls Rose shared a dorm with had wondered what went on between the two, but they had very soon grown used to and even comfortable with this arrangement that Rose and Jamie had. Jamie was after all practically gay.

_Practically_, Jamie insisted, was the key word. He preferred the term "versatile."

Rose liked that, versatile. In her opinion, versatility was a very good thing for a person to have. Being versatile made a person more mature and sophisticated and she was quite jealous that she did not find herself to be quite as versatile as Jamie. Anna Finch-Fletchley was also disappointed that Rose was not versatile, but as Jamie had said comfortingly, "C'est la vie." Jamie did not know what "C'est la vie" meant. Rose had a pretty good guess because her Aunt Fleur spoke fluent French, but she and Jamie had decided that even if their rough translation was incorrect, it was still a good thing to say. It sounded intelligent and mature.

"Rose, Jamie! Wake up!"

Rose groaned, swatting at the arms that were trying to shake her awake. "Go 'way Lola."

Lola stood there with her hands on her hips, "Honestly, every year we go through this. When are you guys going to learn? C'mon! Get UP!"

Lola pulled Rose off the bed and the redhead crumpled to the floor, groaning louder. Jamie yelped as he – tangled in Rose's legs – was also dragged down.

"Agumenti!"

Rose and Jamie gasped as they were hit with a cold stream of water coming from Lola's wand. Rose jumped up with her hands in the air.

"I SURRENDER!"

Christina Nott and Joan Peakes, Rose and Lola's other roommates, laughed at the spectacle. They had another roommate too, Carmella McLaggen, but she was most likely already down at breakfast. Carmella was the early riser of the group. Rose was the night owl.

Rose pulled Jamie up to stand next to her and Jamie tried furtively to wipe the water off his face. Christina tossed him one of her t-shirts and he smiled at her in thanks.

"C'mon Jamie," Joan said, rolling her eyes, "I'll help you find your dorm again."

Jamie beamed at the girl, "Aw, Joanie! You're such a sweetheart. Have you been practicing legilimency? As much as I appreciate you knowing all my needs and wants, all that poking around in my head has given me a massive headache."

Joan rolled her eyes at him. "I'm with Lola, when will the two of you learn?"


	2. Warning for Aqueous Solutions

**A/N: Thank you all for the reviews and reading! I'm assuming in the last chapter Jamie was able to get into the girl's dorms because the charm on the stairs was either damaged in or after the final battle (since everyone had all their family and friends together, I don't think anyone was worried about keeping boys and girls sleeping seperately.) Or possibly students complained that it was sexist against the guys so it was repealed. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, JK Rowling, or any associates.**

* * *

Somehow Rose and Jamie managed to get dressed and make it out of their dorms with minimal difficulty, given their current situation.

Lola got the two into the great hall and sat them down to eat, but she soon grew tired of their shushing her to speak quieter and turn down the lights. As soon as Lola spotted Albus, Scorpius, and Lysander, she dumped the two hung over friends on the Slytherins. Rose toned down her complaints after this, but Jamie knew no shame.

Scorpius and Al took to ignoring Jamie's complaints, but Lysander did not mind watching over the two invalids at all. It happened to be his own opinion that people discovered great truths when they were drunk. He was currently in the process of working on an experiment to discover if a person might experience a sort of spiritual connected to another dimension when drunk. His mother was quite enthusiastic about his research and the two were convinced that certain "delusions" drunk people had were really images from the fifth dimension that a person's usual perceptions could not interpret properly.

"Any connections with the dead?" Lysander quizzed, a purple quill posed above a sheet of parchment where he had written other notes from the on-going experiment.

"Yeah, a dead ass in my face!" Jamie grumbled.

Rose almost choked on her eggs.

"Really?" Lysander asked, intensely interested, "A donkey or a buttocks?"

Jamie took a small sip of pumpkin juice, grimacing slightly because it seemed colder than usual. "Eh, I'd say she's a bit of both."

"Fascinating!" Lysander scribbled. "Did you feel anything physically or was it a strictly spiritual/mental experience?"

Jamie thought about that for a moment before decided. "It was cold."

Lysander's quill scratched away at the parchment excitedly. Scorpius and Al, bored by the interrogation, started narrating Rose's actions to amuse themselves.

"And Rose Weasley goes for a roll!"

"But what's this? She's paused. Could she be reconsidering?"

"It looks like it Al. Can it be that the roll might be too harsh for her stomach in this delicate state?"

"Well that's quite a possibility, Score. You don't need to remind me of Rose's tempermental digestive system, I remember Christmas with her."

"I was six." Rose snapped at her cousin. "You were the one who bet me to eat all those sweets Uncle George brought!"

Al shook his head, "I'm talking about last Christmas, Rosie. You can not hold your eggnog!"

"You're lying!" Rose accused, not having memory of any eggnog incident.

Al shrugged while Score and Jamie laughed – Jamie quieter than Score. Lysander was appraising Rose curiously.

"I'd like to hear about eggnog-induced dimensional connections. I wonder if the type of alcohol makes a difference. Mum and I didn't even think of that."

Rose shook her head, pushing her breakfast plate away. "C'mon Jamie, we'd better go get our schedules."

Score and Al narrated as Jamie and Rose got up together. Lysander waved at them and shouted to be careful of wrackspurts – they'd be particularly unpleasant for someone in an already weakened mental state.

* * *

Rose and Jamie sat together on a couch in the Gryffindor Common room. They had several magazines, books, and of course their schedules in front of them. Students were running and out of the common room, enjoying their last moments of freedom before their classes officially started. It had started raining just after breakfast that morning, which was why the common room was somewhat more crowded than usual, since people could not go sit down by the lake.

"I still don't understand why you willingly chose to take divination." Rose said, starting at Jamie's schedule incredulously.

Jamie shrugged, "I'm kind of good at it. Besides, Firenze is the best eye-candy this school has to offer… Except for you of course."

Rose rolled her eyes at her silly friend, "Still, it throws us off completely. See, we have different free periods!"

"Well you didn't have to take Ancient Runes. When are you going to need to read a dead language?"

"My mum did! We have the book she had to read back home. She loves the thing."

Jamie shrugged, "Whatever. At least most of our other classes are together."

"Ugh!" Rose grunted as someone practically threw herself onto Rose and Jamie. Rose glared at the little redhead and pushed the younger Gryffindor off of her.

Lily rolled off the couch and onto the floor. She laid there for a minute before sitting up and propping herself up by the elbows in front of Rose and Jamie.

"What's up?" She asked the two.

Jamie shrugged, taking the schedules from Roes so that he could compare them. Rose raised her eyebrows at her younger cousin.

"We're comparing schedules. What are you doing?"

Lily shrugged and Rose rolled her eyes.

"Okay, let me rephrase that: why aren't you doing the same thing with _your_ friends?"

Lily shrugged again, but this time decided to give Rose a real answer, "Moira's busy studying, _already_! Andrew and Justine apparently got together over the summer, so there's no way I'm going to play third wheel for that." She sighed dramatically. "I'm bored!"

Rose shook her head in disbelief. "Seriously? We just got back and you're already bored?"

"Don't be so judgmental, Rose," Jamie interrupted, patting Lily's arm comfortingly. "Fourth year's tough on everyone. Remember out fourth year?"

"Oh god!" Rose groaned at the memory. "Please don't remind me! That was terrible. You practically abandoned me!"

"I did not _abandon_ you! I… simply got a little carried away… in… other things." Jamie blushed sheepishly.

"Other things?" Rose shook her head. "You were obsessed. I swear, every week you fell in love over again with someone different."

Jamie shrugged, "It's a lot of hard work being so versatile. I'm sorry that not everyone can fall in love once like you."

"Ooh!" Lily squeaked excitedly. "You have a boyfriend Rosie? Since when? Who is he?"

"He's not by boyfriend." Rose clarified stiffly. "He's only the love of my life… even if he doesn't know it yet."

"Who? Who? Who?" Lily was bouncing up and down.

Jamie rolled his eyes at the enthusiastic young girl. "She's not going to simply tell you. She's been holding onto this since first year and she only told me when we were in third year after she had gathered plenty of dirt to hold over me if I ever told."

Rose nodded in agreement. "It's highly confidential. It's more romantic like that."

"Wow," Lily sighed, clearly impressed.

"What about you, Lily Pad?" Jamie asked, pulling the girl up off the ground to sit snugly against his side. "Who do_ you_ like?"

Lily blushed, suddenly quieting down a lot. "Oh, well, I don't know."

Jamie rolled her eyes at the girl, "Oh yes you do know! You have the same embarrassed face as Rose, and you if you're embarrassed then that means that there's someone, and they're juicy!"

Lily giggled, "Juicy?"

Jamie nodded seriously, "Oh yes, the juiciest."

Lily giggled again, and then sighed. Jamie and rose were both looking at her expectantly.

"I'll only tell if you if you tell me all the people you liked in your fourth year, Jamie."

Jamie thought about that agreement, and then nodded, shaking Lily hand. "Fair enough, though I'm just going to go over the major ones. I had a billion little crushes that I forget about. It would take to long to go over all of them. Help me out, eh Rose?"

Rose nodded, "Of course."

"Well then," Jamie thought. "First crush of the year…. Well I went to your dad's family birthday party with Rose just a week before the semester started and that's where it all started, the fourth year to top all fourth years! I had a tiny thing your brother…"

"JAMES!" Lily exclaimed, stunned.

Jamie shook his head. "No, silly. Albus. James was first year. Though, it wasn't a real crush, I didn't even know that I was versatile then you see. More, I admired James, I thought it was so cool how we almost had the same name... Now that I think about it, my dad probably did that purposely, but anyway Rose still makes me count that as a crush."

Rose nodded from her place on the couch.

"So, I had a tiny thing for Al for a few weeks until, of course, I heard about him and, well, _you_ know."

"I know what?" Lily interrupted.

"Oh? You _don't_ know?" Jamie sounded surprised.

"_What?_"

"He still hasn't told anyone," Rose explained to Jamie and he nodded.

"Wait, Al has a girlfriend?" Lily asked.

Rose and Jamie just shrugged innocently and Jamie continued on.

"Anyway, I'd never want to get between Al and _you know_, so I moved on to, hmmm, I think that's when I dated Nick Ackerly, the Ravenclaw?"

Rose shook her head, "No, you kept it in the family after Al. Remember, that's when you decided that Hugo was the cutest thing you'd ever seen."

"Ah yes, I recall now. But Rose dear didn't let me stay on that one for long so _then_ I dated Nick. But Nick was kind of needy, which was nice at first but the novelty wore off pretty fast so I dropped him after about a month to date Abigail Codwallader, the Hufflepuff beater? That was before that… thing… happened. With her face?" Jamie gestured at his own face, trying to p rotary his meaning without words. Rose chuckled and Lily stared at Jamie in awe.

"So yeah, I got tired of her pretty quickly and then I had the biggest crush on Zizi Smith, the Ravenclaw beauty, for about three solid months until she threatened to have me attacked if I didn't stop following her around everyone. I returned to my friend Rose like a wounded puppy where she promptly forgot what an ass I'd been and took me back like the best friend that she is." Jamie beamed at Rose and she laughed at him.

"You're such a suck-up." She informed him.

"Yeah, but I suck good."

Rose's mouth dropped open in shock and she reached to cover Lily's ears. Lily looked up at Jamie, half-tempted to laugh, but held it in not knowing if it would be acceptable for her to laugh or not.

"Jamie! Watch your mouth around the virgin ears!" Rose scolded.

"Oh, sorry, Lily and I can go talk somewhere else." Jamie offered. This time Lily did laugh and Rose sighed, trying to pass her amusement off as mild annoyance.

The three were silent for a moment while Rose flipped through her magazine. After a few seconds, Lily broke the silence.

"I can't believe you liked both my brothers!" She exclaimed, wrinkling her nose in distaste.

"Hey, don't judge. My father's practically got a shrine to your dad at home. I was conditioned from a very early age to find Potters attractive."

Lily still could not believe it.

"Hey, weren't you supposed to tell me who you like now?" Jamie demanded.

Lily shrugged. "I don't know… was that the agreement?"

"Yes." Jamie answered, but Lily was not convinced.

"You'll see eventually… maybe."

Jamie rolled his eyes, setting his and Rose's schedules to the side where Lily immediately snatched them up. She scanned Rose's schedule, wrinkling her nose at all the boring classes. Then she went on to Jamie's.

"He! We have the same free period! I was all concerned because I didn't think anyone I knew had that period off. Moira doesn't have a single free period! Can you believe that?"

"Not surprising." Rose said. "I bet she applied for a time turner. McGonagall approached me about getting one a few years ago, but mum suggested that I didn't. She says it's too stressful."

"Time-turner?" Lily repeated.

"Yeah, for if you have multiple classes at the same time. It helps you so you can be at all of them at the same time. I don't know exactly how it works, I never saw it."

"Wow! I can think of a million things that I would do with one of those if I had it!" lily exclaimed.

"That's why they only give them out to people like Moira and your Aunt Hermione who would never even dream of using them for anything other than getting you class, you silly!" Jamie leaned in to tickle Lily's side and the young girl fell backwards into her cousin, overwhelmed by laughter. Rose pushed Lily playfully and Lily retaliated by grabbing the nearest pillow and bashing it against Rose's head.

Rose abandoned her magazines to hunt for a big pillow of her own. Soon almost everyone in the common room had joined the three on the couch for an epic pillow fight.

* * *

The dungeons were a cheery place to start off the year.

Okay, so not the cheer_iest _place, but they were nicer than one would expect. The professor was a petite woman, inclined to wear all black. At first Rose had been shocked by her gothic appearance, but she had a lot of energy and always worked to make sure the dungeons were brightly lit. One day last year she (being a muggle-born and still a very young and hip teacher) had enchanted a disco ball to float around the room while dance music played!

Rose had extreme difficulty reconciling her appearance with her attitude, but Jamie had told her that he suspected it was a statement to make the small girl look tougher and keep people from walking all over her. Apparently, he said, short people liked to be intimidating.

Today the dungeons were lit with a soft blue glow—soothing and comforting to keep stress levels low for the students. Not that it helped much when they were brewing something particularly difficult, but the students still appreciated the warm atmosphere that Professor Slughorn, though a kind man, had never achieved in the potions while he was a teacher. Even so, students were still known to have the occasional mental breakdown or two in the those dungeons.

Jamie and Rose arrived to class early to claim their seats in the middle of the classroom. (People of fashion were always a happy medium: the front of the class made it look like you were too eager whereas only clackers sat in the back.) The two of them walked while they waited for the other students to arrive. They had class with the Slytherins today and they smiled at Score and Lysander when the two took their seats in front of them.

"Where's Al?" Jamie asked, it was unusual for Score and Al to be seen apart—they were more inseparable than even Jamie and Rose.

"He has an unnatural fear of aqueous solutions." Lysander responded vaguely, looking around the room instead of at Jamie.

Jamie followed Lysander's gaze, trying to figure out what was so interesting to the Slytherin boy. "Oh, uh, er…"

Scorpius saved Jamie a response by translating Lysander speak, "Al hates potions."

Rose laughed, "Honestly, he's just asking for more people to compare him to his dad!"

"That's what I said!" Scorpius agreed. "He's named after an ex-potions master and he doesn't like potions!"

Rose shrugged, frowning at Lysander who had started hissing at someone in the doorway. Carmella McLaggen stood there, having stopped when she heard the strange noise. She was looking at Lysander and his group with an alarmed look in her eye. Rose leaned forward to whap Lysander on the head.

"What are you hissing for? It's just Carmella."

Lysander didn't take his eyes off the girl as she walked to the furthest available seat from Lysander, sending confused glances to Rose.

"I'm drunk." Lysander explained. "I'm having a premonition."

Jamie laughed at him, "Okay, Ly, whatever."

Lysander didn't respond, but Scorpius grimaced, "He's not kidding. I'm his witness, he really knows how to throw back."

"You're an awfully clean drunk," Rose said, unconvinced.

Lysander nodded, "oh yes, I get a lot of practice when we visit the crazy side of my family."

"You mean you're not the crazy side?"

Lysander looked like he was thinking that remark over, but surprised Rose and Jamie with the pained expression that appeared on his face.

"Calm down, Ly." Score said, patting his friend's shoulder comfortingly, "You know you're bad at thinking deeply when you're drunk. Think rainbows and butterflies."

Lysander's expression did not change for a second, but then Score started humming softly and Lysander's face softened back to his normal expression and he began to rock gently side to side along with the time of the song.

"I see red raindrops. Are you writing this down Score?" Lysander asked.

Score nodded as he doodled a primitive rendition of a dragon eating a mouse on Lysander's "drunken notes."

"Oh yes. Don't worry Ly." Score said, in a tone that made it obvious to Rose that Score probably hadn't written down a single note that Lysander had told him to since this phase of the experiment had started. Her suspicions were confirmed when she leaned over to look at the notes and saw, apart from Score's drawings, only Lysander's meticulous handwriting.

"So Score, why aren't you drunk?" Jamie asked.

"Because I refuse to be used as one of Ly's lab rats. I'm too dignified for that."

Rose was worried for a moment about her own dignity since she had, after all, been one of Ly's lab rats, but Jamie saved her the worry through his superior perception skills.

"Okay, bright eyes, what's the real reason?"

Score sniffed and stuck his nose in the air, looking highly insulted. However, after a minute of Jamie staring him down, Score scowled and responded.

"If you must know, Al don't approve of drinking, especially in school. He's afraid we might be expelled."

Jamie snorted, "And you let that stop you?"

"Well," Score hesitated. "We might have made a little compromise… and of course there was something in it for me as well…" Score's eyes sparkled.

Rose clapped her hands together in excitement, barely managing not to jump out of her chair.

"It was _you_!" She exclaimed. "You made Al so pretty!"

Score grinned, dusting off his shoulders. "I know, I do good work."

"Fabulous work!" Jamie corrected him.

"Is there something in my eye?" Lysander lifted his left eyelid and put his face up to Scorpius. Score scratched his head, pushing Lysander away.

"Just your eyeball."

"Is that supposed to be there?" Lysander asked seriously.

"Alright now kids, settle down. Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Scamander, please face the front." Professor Anderson calmed the talkative students quickly. "Miss Weasley, are you quite alright? You look like you've got to pee."

Rose blushed, trying to compose herself. She must remember that it was undignified to get so excited, even if she had solved the mystery of how her cousin had suddenly become fashionable enough to go out in public with her and Jamie.

"Now class, I would first like to congratulate everyone for making it this far. I'm very proud of all of you for your O.W.L. scores, but my pride alone isn't going to help you pass you N.E.W.T.S next year! So, if everyone would please take out their text books… Good, now, we'll start off with some health potions. The examiners love to make you think you've got a dying patient on your hands and watch the pressure get to you, so this is a very important chapter and not the only one dealing with these types of things that we'll be covering…"

"Jeeze," Jamie muttered to Rose under his breath, "We've just finished O.W.L.s and she's already pushing N.E.W.T.s… give me a second to breathe!"

Rose nodded in agreement, watching the Professor as she rummaged around in her desk for something as she talked.

"…but it's not just life-or-death situations in which health-related potions are useful." Professor Anderson pulled a tiny flask out of her desk and nodded to herself as she started walking down the aisle of student desks. "There are some health potions that are extremely useful to have just for trivial, every-day purposes…"

Professor Anderson set the flask on Lysander's desk, its dark purple contents bubbling slightly. She beamed down at the boy and he smiled back with equal enthusiasm.

"Take Mr. Scamander for example. Sober-up potions can be extremely helpful when you're sitting in class and suddenly just happen to find yourself drunk."

The class burst out in giggles and chuckles, everyone suddenly straining to see Lysander, wondering if he was really drunk. Lysander, however, barely noticed, too intrigued by the contents of the flask which Professor Scamander had given him.

"It's an experiment," He answered vaguely, poking the flask to make the potion slosh around inside.

"well next time, Mr. Scamander, please refrain from launching into an experiment right before my class, unless it actually has something to do with my class."

Lysander nodded, still grinning foolishly as he dared to pick up the flask.

"Is this a dolmaryk potion?" He asked. "I saw a girl take dolmaryk when we were in South Africa and she sprouted wings and elephant tusks! I can imagine several situations in which that would be highly advantageous." Lysander uncapped the potion and watched a puff of smoke rise over it.

Professor Anderson rolled her eyes, "Oh, just drink it Lysander."

* * *

"Ohh! Look at this color!" Jamie said, shoving a paper square in Rose's face.

Rose took the square out of Jamie's hand and held it at a more reasonable distance from her eyes. "It's pretty," Rose admitted, looking at the dark brown color. "But don't you think it'd be a little weird to have pink glitter in my hair constantly?"

"It's weird that you're changing your hair color at all." Lola grumbled,, though continued to search through her color squares, occasionally holding them up to her own hair and laughing.

Jamie, Rose, and Lola were seated at a table in a secluded corner of the library where hopefully the librarian would not notice whispered conversations. Rose had found the spell that her mum had used on her hair and a variation that would allow her to change her hair to any color she wanted. But, in order for the spell to work, Rose had to have a very specific color in mind which was why the three friends were now rifling through the squares of color samples they'd found.

"Rose! What if you went pink! Or something other fun color like that!" Lola suggested, more enthusiastically.

Rose shook her head quickly, "No way! That's too… punk for me. I'm going for a sophisticated look, not a "teenager spiraling out of control trying to be a rebel against the whole world" look."

Lola rolled her eyes, amused by her friend's dramatics.

"What do you care about being so 'sophisticated' and 'perfect' anyway?" Lola complained.

"Ricky Greenspell? Sabrina Vonderspot? Ever heard of them? Only the idols of our magical society! They're beautiful and sophisticated… Hell, even Astoria Malfoy! She's practically_ royal_. God, I wish I could be her!"

Jamie snickered, "Go figure."

"Okay, one," Lola interrupted. "That's creepy that you want to be Scorpius's mother. Two, that doesn't answer my question. So what if they're idols? You realize you don't have to look like them to be beautiful. The only reason everyone thinks that they're beautiful is because they're rich and successful. If Abigail Codwallader became rich and successful then everyone would think she's superior and beautiful and you'd be attacking your faces with knives and fire to look like her."

Rose shook her head at her uncultured friend. "You're so dramatic Lola. You just don't get it."

"_I'm _dramatic?" Lola repeated incredulously.

"You're both extremes. That's why you're friends, you cancel out each other's craziness." Jamie said. "Oh, I found it Rose!"

Rose looked at the color Jamie was waving around and gasped.

"Oh, Jamie, it's perfect!"

Lola took the sample, frowning, "It's just black."

Rose shook her head, "No, it's softer, almost like an extremely dark grey. Charcoal… kind of."

Lola laughed, putting away all the colors she'd picked out. Rose picked up her wand and the book she'd found with the spell, reading it over again. She took a deep breath.

"You ready?" Jamie asked.

Rose nodded and he held up the color in front of her face. Rose concentrated on the color, then she waved her wand, repeating the incantation and held her breath.

She waited a few seconds, then, "Well?"

"Rose, it's adorable!" Jamie gushed. "I mean, I still love love_ love_ your red hair, but this looks so much better than I pictured!"

"Mirror! Mirror!" Rose gestured frantically.

Jamie pulled a little hand-held mirror from Rose's purse and handed it to her. Rose looked and gasped. This was what she'd envisioned! It was softer—gentler to Rose's complexion—than the ugly muggle hair dye had been. She looked different. Not perfect, but nice enough.

"It's a definite improvement!" Rose said, running her fingers through the new hair.

Jamie shrugged, but Lola shook her head. "It's not _you_."

"Don't be ridiculous, Lola. I may still have a long way to go but this is so much better than it was!"

Lola rolled her eyes in frustration, "Well, I have to go write a paper now. You know, actually do something of substance."

Rose chucked, "Whatever Lola."


	3. Broken Spoken Silence

**Disclaimer: For amusement purposes only. This is a non-profit post. I do not own the rights to these characters or anything Harry Potter related.**

* * *

"Ugh, I'm so fat!"

Jamie and Rose were once again in Moaning Myrtle's restroom. Though they hadn't managed to snag any alcohol so there was no drunken messiness tonight. Tonight Jamie and Rose were just having a good old fashioned bitch session. Surprisingly, Moaning Myrtle was no where to be found. Usually it was the highlight of the ghost's day when she got to laugh at Jamie and Rose. She especially loved hearing Rose voice all her insecurities about her appearance and her unrequited love.

"You're not fat, Rose! You're curvaceous! Better than me, I'm a stick!"

Jamie was standing in front of a mirror, analyzing his shape critically. "And I have such a weird face. Look at it Rose! Do you think that my mouth is too big for my face?"

Rose shook her head, "No, it's fabulous. You have such a big smile, it's absolutely _dashing_! Perfect for dazzling pretty girls and boys."

"What about my eyes?"

"They're like adorable little puppy dog eyes!"

"Ugh! I don't want puppy eyes! Why oh why do I have to take after my father?"

"I hear you," Rose grumbled in agreement. "I'm just so relieved that we fixed my hair."

Jamie sighed as he moved closer to Rose so that he could play with that dark hair. He had a bit of an obsession with playing with long hair. Any long hair. He liked to run his fingers though it and braid it. He had been rather fond of analyzing the different shades that made up Rose's ginger hair, but like a good friend he was fully suportive of her change. "I wish we could fix _my_ problems that quickly."

"Jamie, you have absolutely nothing to complain about. So many people find you attractive! You'll find someone to mack on in no time!"

Jamie sighed dramatically, twirling a piece of hair around his finger and then letting it unravel. "But I don't want just _someone_ any more! Rose, what do I do?"

Rose shrugged, itching her scalp where Jamie had been pulling on her hair. "You just have to wait until you've found the one. There's not much you can do about it, it will just happen."

"How do I know when it happens though? How do I know when I've found the one?"

Rose shrugged, "Why are you so serious about this all of a sudden?"

Jamie chewed on his lip, glaring angrily at his reflection in the mirror.

"I like someone."

"Oh, go figure. What else is new?"

"No, but this is different somehow, Rose! I can't tell how, but I just get this different kind of feeling in my chest when I'm around her, you know? Like I want to pour my heart and soul out for her. Like I'd tell her anything she ever wanted to hear and I never ever want to stop talking to her!"

Rose stared at her friend in awe. Never, in their six years of best-friendship had she ever heard him speak so _romantically_! He'd always had it in him, she knew, but never had such feeling come out of him like it was now.

"Oh, Jamie!" Rose hugged her distraught friend, trying to squeeze his worry and pain away. "That is so sweet!"

Jamie groaned. "She'll never like me!"

Rose froze in her hug, now seriously concerned. Whenever Jamie had a new crush he didn't consider the possibility of defeat. How could he? He was dashing and cute like a little puppy dog. Everyone wanted a piece of him, even if they didn't know they did.

"What do you mean, Jamie?"

"Because! I don't know. I just feel like… Like she doesn't like me. Like… I don't know… I keep trying to hint to her, but she doesn't seem to get it. If she liked me then she'd be looking for signs!"

Rose thought about that for a moment, studying her friend gravely. "And you want her to be the one?"

"Yes! More than anything."

"Why?"

Jamie didn't hesitate like Rose expected him to. "Because, she's so sweet when she talks and she's so adorable I just want to pinch her cheeks! And she laughs at me and she makes me laugh when she isn't even trying…" Jamie sighed dramatically again. If his words didn't convince Rose, then the desperate look in his eyes certainly did.

"How long have you liked her?" Rose asked, almost afraid to find out.

Jamie blushed, "Please don't get mad at me."

Rose inwardly groaned. Knowing Jamie he was talking about a girl he'd just met today, but she pushed away her cynicism. "Why would I get mad?"

"Because… because… I didn't tell you sooner…"

"Jamie, don't be ridiculous!" Rose scolded, actually relieved by the admittance. At least that had put an end to her hour-crush worry. Maybe a few weeks then? How could she have not been able to tell that her best friend was hung up on someone for weeks! "There aren't time limits on our friendship. It took me two years to tell you the name of my love."

Jamie nodded, "Well, I really first noticed her as crush-worthy five months ago… It's just been escalating! I can't stop thinking about her!"

Rose clapped her hands together, amazed. "Oh Jamie! That's so exciting!" Five months? That had to be a new record for Jamie.

Jamie nodded, "Which is why I'm trying to be serious about this."

Rose considered the situation for a moment.

"My advice is that if you really like this girl, just give it some more time. I know that will be hard for you, but things will happen eventually, you just need patience. That's the key to true love."

Jamie nodded, "Patience. I can try that."

The two lapsed into silence. For a moment Rose waited awkwardly for Jamie to continue talking… but he didn't.

"So…" Rose began, trying to prompt her friend into speech. Jamie looked at her, confused. He started at her for a minute while she gave him an expectant look. Finally he realized that she was waiting for him to say something specific.

"Um, so… what?"

Rose regarded her friend with disbelief, "So are you honestly not going to tell me who this girl is who has made you turn over a new leaf? Who has opened your eyes to the true ideals of love? Who has captured your entire heart and locked it away in her steel box without leaving even a single piece for my friendship?"

"Oh, now _really_. The dramatics aren't necessary. I still have my heart and you know you have a very special place in it very far away from my fickle love interests."

Rose chuckled, but then remembered what had prompted Jamie's little speech. "No, but seriously, I don't get to know who she is?"

Jamie flushed red, "Well, I told you, it's kind of different. I don't want to jinx it by telling you."

Rose put a hand on her hip and made her best 'sassy girl' face. "Oh, so you think that _I _jinx your romances?"

"Don't be silly, of course you don't Rose. I jinx them myself by rushing into it. You waited two years to tell me of your love, and that obsession is still going strong, Maybe if I wait to get all excited and giggle with you about it then it'll last too, right?"

Rose nodded in agreement. The two were silent again for a moment, neither friend waiting for the other to say something this time, just reveling in their thoughts.

"But… uh… Rose?" Rose pulled herself out of her reverie and raised her eyebrows at Jamie, waiting for him to go on.

"Well… I mean… Well… Don't you think that… Er… Oh, I dunno… maybe you should try… dating? Like, other guys?"

Rose sighed. This was a conversation Jamie felt obligated to have with Rose at least once a year so that he felt like he was looking out for his girl and being a good friend. Although Jamie never said much about Rose's love other than the occasional joke, Rose knew he didn't exactly approve. Rose didn't blame him—if their situation had been reversed then Rose knew that she would think that Jamie was absolutely crazy! But as it was, Rose knew what she felt, even if Jamie thought a relationship between her and her love was impossible, Rose had faith. Not much, she was fairly certain that her blonde god didn't even notice that she existed, but she still recognized that she had a chance in just one more year.

Rose sighed, "I _have_ tried Jamie."

"But not recently! What if you discover that your feelings have changed for him after all? Or what if by some chance he does notice you? Wouldn't you like to have some dating experience? Dating someone is a lot different than just hanging out with me or hanging out with Al and his friends."

"I know it is!" Rose snapped. "I just can't think of anyone I like enough to actually date consistently and I don't want to just go on a million first dates with random guys…"

Rose sighed and Jamie nodded, leaning over to pat her shoulder consolingly. The two stared ahead at their reflections in the mirror. It was a common sight—the two of them standing there together. For a moment Rose considered what it would be like to date not just some guy, but a guy she already knew she was close with, a guy like Jamie. Or, you know, actually date Jamie. She could see the two of them going out to eat together and dancing together and listening to the same music together… but that was all stuff they did already on a normal basis as friends. Rose tried to picture a romantic candle-lit dinner with her in a ball gown and Jamie in a tux, the two of them exchanging small talk awkwardly, Jamie leaning forward, puppy dog eyes closed and big lips puckered, to kiss her goodnight…

Rose's eyes widened, horrified for a moment at the thought of Jamie trying to kiss her, but then she remembered that they were still only standing together as BFFs in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Overwhelmed with relief, Rose was able to recall her imaginings without fear and realized how absolutely absurd they were. Her and Jamie? Together? Dating? Kissing? The thought was so ridiculous, that Rose erupted in a bout of loud, hysterical laughter. Jamie jumped about a foot off the ground at the sudden sound and stared at his friend wide-eyed as she collapsed on the floor of the bathroom in a fit of giggles.

"Rose! Rose, are you okay?"

Rose laughed harder and tears leaked out of her eyes. Jamie was getting seriously concerned as he tried to check her pulse – not that he was sure what her pulse would tell him since she was clearly alive and breathing, he just wasn't sure what else you were supposed to do to make sure someone was healthy and doing okay. Jamie pulled out his wand and pointed it at Rose. "_Augumenti_!" He proclaimed and a jet of cold water rushed out of the wand and collided with Rose's face. Rose's laughter lessened as the cold water made contact with her skin and she glared at Jamie as she tried to chase away the stray giggles and her get breathing in check.

'What… what… was that for?" She managed to get out between snickers.

Jamie stared at Rose incredulously. "Seriously! You just collapsed! I thought you were having a seizure or something, you were unresponsive! What the fuck was I supposed to do!"

Rose giggled harder at seeing Jamie so worked up about a silly little laughing fit and Jamie leaned forward to slap her.

Rose blinked in shock, all her giggles forced out of her. She took a shaky breath.

"Woah, thanks. Didn't realize I needed that…" Rose moved to stand up, but Jamie pushed her back down.

"You sure you okay? What happened?"

Rose shook her head, trying not to burst out laughing again at the mental picture she had formed in her head. "I just…" Rose suppressed a snigger," Thought of something really funny."

Jamie cocked an eyebrow at her suspiciously, but just shook his head, figuring it would be better not to even ask.

"Are you okay to stand up now? You sure you're not going to spazz out again?"

Rose nodded, "Oh yes, I promise to be good!"

Jamie nodded and helped Rose back up to her feet.

"Sorry I worried you, Mum." Rose pinched Jamie's cheeks teasingly.

"Oh, it's fine." Jamie replied nonchalantly. "I was really just concerned about your dignity. You just looked so stoic and _sophisticated_ rolling around on the dirty bathroom floor-"

Jamie ducked to dodge the hit Rose aimed at his head.

* * *

Lily stood outside of the entrance to the Ravenclaw common room, pacing impatiently. Moira Goyle had been her best friend since they met on the train ride to Hogwarts that very first year. Lily had been praying to be in Gryffindor because even though her brother Al had been sorted into Slytherin, she still found the idea of being in the notoriously black house had scared her. Moira too had been hoping not to be in Slytherin, her father and all her pureblood family had been in Slytherin and while she loved her family in her own special way, there was no way on earth she would follow in their footsteps. Both girls ended up escaping Slytherin clutches, and though they hadn't been sorted togetherr, per their ideal situation, the two had still been able to retain their friendship even after being sorted into different houses.

So the two girls had bonded through their mutual fear of snakes and become besties. Recently the two had started to feel the strain of maintaining a relationship when their time together was getting more and more limited and their interests began to expand in opposite directions, but even though they weren't together 24/7 the way Rose and Jamie were or Scorpius and Al, Moira was still the only person Lily would trust all of her secrets to and Lily was the only person Moira would turn to talk to when things got too rough—particularly at home.

Lily and Moira had made plans on the train ride in to Hogwarts to hang out today since classes had begun and things were starting to become routine—Moira loved routine and though Lily liked to be spontaneous, she understood Moira's need for things to be always under control and never pushed the girl too much. Moira had divulged the information to Lily last year that there was no password into the Ravenclaw common room and had been quite surprised when Lily told her that both Gryffindor and Slytherin required passwords. Moira had told Lily that if she ever needed Moira then all she needed to do to get into the common room was to answer a little riddle.

Easier said than done, Moira.

Lily had only tried to get into the common room three times including today and she had yet to answer the riddle to the bronze eagle's satisfaction.

"'_What is broken every time it's spoken…?'_" Lily repeated the riddle, shaking her head. She had tried to tell the owl that if you had a spell to break something every time that the name of it was spoken, then anything could be broken you spoke of it and while the eagle seemed amused, (or at least, Lily imagined that it was amused, she always tended to animate charmed objects more in her head than they might be in real life. It made things more amusing if they had a bit of a personality.) Though the eagle had seemed amused by her attempt, her enthusiasm was not enough to get her into the common room.

_What's broken…_

Lily's thoughts were pulled away from the silly riddle as the entrance to the common room opened. Immediately Lily straightened up, putting on her darkest most annoyed face to show Moira how annoyed she was at the girl for being late, but to her surprise it was not Moira who exited the common room.

Marc Barbary, a tall, athletic boy who played chaser for Ravenclaw, was just on his way to the Great Hall to get something to eat and was not expecting anyone to be outside of the common room. Especially not a fiery ginger glaring death at him! At the sight of Lily, Marc practically jumped out of his skin, fumbling for his wand buried in his pockets somewhere.

Lily squeaked, and rushed forward to calm Marc.

"Ohh, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to scare you! I, I'm waiting for my friend Moira, and she's late you see, so I'm kind of upset with her and I of course wasn't expecting for you to come out, though I should have realized anyone could walk out since it is the common room for all of your house, and I'm just…"

"Lily, take a deep breath." Marc ordered, recovering from his shock. "It's fine, I'm sorry I jumped like that, it was extremely unmanly of me, please forgive my lack of bravery."

Lily blushed, shaking her head, "I'm sure you're plenty brave… you just weren't expecting me."

"I dunno," Marc said, shaking his head, "You are the Gryffindor here, who do you think must be the brave one?"

Lily blushed again, pushing a long lock of red behind her ear, "Well you're the Ravenclaw, so you must be the smart one?"

"Naturally." Marc said grinning. He had a small, pretty mouth. Very polite. "So I wonder who would wear the pants in our relationship?"

"Our relationship?" Lily repeated, her heart skipping a beat. "Is this your way of asking me out, Marc? You know you could just ask."

"Ah yes," Marc said smiling, "But you must remember that I'm not the brave Gryffindor here."

"Hogsmeade is in two weeks. You want to take me somewhere nice?"

"I'll take you anywhere you want, Lily."

Marc winked and then continued on his way to the Great Hall. "Have fun with Moira!" He called back at her. Lily nodded.

"Wait!" She called, and Marc stopped, looking back at her with that neat little smile of his.

Lily suddenly felt a little flustered. "Um… what's... what's broken every time it's spoken?"

Marc bit his lip and cocked his head to the side, thinking for a moment, then the smile came back.

"Silence!"

"_Silence_." Lily whispered as she watched the boy's retreating form. She stood there for a few minutes, having forgot completely where she was or why she was there. She heard a sound behind her and it was the eagle.

"Well, are you going in?" It demanded.

Lily was about to nod and proceed, but then Moira came bounding up, her hair mussed up and eyes shining brightly. She was smiling brightly, but looked a little worried nevertheless. Lily wondered what on earth could upset anyone on a beautiful day like today.

"Lily! I'm so sorry I'm late! I was just leaving when I remembered a spelling error I made in my Defense Against the Dark Arts essay and I just had to fix it before I forgot about it again and then I was reading it over quick and thought that I wrote a fact down wrong, so of course I had to look it up and it turns out that I _was_ correct but then I got carried away reading…" Moira stopped, noticing that her best friend not only seemed to not only have no annoyance towards her tardiness for once, but also was not paying attention to a single word that she was saying.

"Lils! You there?" Moira asked, waving a hand in front of Lily's eyes.

Lily snapped back to attention, trying to be serious but was unable to wipe the smile off her face, "Well of course I'm here. How's it going Moira?"

"Uh… fine. What's up with you? You're practically jumping out of her skin."

Unlike her older cousin, Lily did not care for being sophisticated and mature and she showed just that by bouncing up and down, hugging Moira with enthusiasm.

"Ohmigosh!" Lily finally exploded. "So you know how I told you that I kind of sort of liked someone maybe a little bit?"

Moira blinked, surprised by the sudden outburst from her friend, but she nodded, recalling the exchange.

"Well I totally lied! I am _so_ into him! And he just asked me out! Just now! Well, sort of, he kind of manipulated me into asking him out, but whatever, that doesn't matter, what matters is that I've got a date to Hogsmeade!"

Moira clapped her hands together, finally seeing the reason to be excited and she did a little bounce too, though not quite so enthusiastically as Lily.

"So are you going to tell me who he is now?" Moira demanded.

Lily nodded and blushed, suddenly feeling a little shy. "Marc Barbary."

Moira's jaw dropped.

"Marc Barbary? As in the Ravenclaw fifth year? On Quidditch team? His uncle is Heathcote Barbary, guitarist for the Weird Sisters? _That_ Marc Barbary?"

Lily nodded enthusiastically, practically singing. "Yes, yes, that Marc Barbary! Only the best looking guy in our entire school." Lily sighed happily.

"Well this is perfect!" Moira exclaimed happily. "Now I don't have to worry about feeling guilty when I can't hang out and have to study, because you have a little boyfriend to hang out with!"

Lily giggled, then registered the entirety of Moira's statement and groaned. "Wait, Moira, are you serious? You're excited for me to have a boyfriend because now you'll have more time to _study_? Moira!"

"What!" Moira demanded, sounding highly insulted. "I thought it would make a good arrangement."

"Moira, do you know how utterly pathetic that sounds though? Studying while I go off with my boyfriend?"

Moira only laughed, "We'll see who's pathetic when we look at our marks in class and our O.W.L.S next year!"

Lily groaned. "Moira, we _have_ to get you a man."

* * *

That evening at the dining hall, Lily sat down next to Rose and Jamie instead of going to sit with her friends as usual. Rose gave her a strange look while Jamie decided to try out one of his "dashing" smiles on her. Lily smiled back at Jamie, pointedly ignoring Rose and moved to squeeze in between the two, much to Rose's annoyance. Jamie however just rolled his eyes over the top of Lily's head, and then threw a friendly arm around her.

"What's up Water Lily?" Jamie asked her while Rose poked at her mashed potatoes.

Lily giggled at the nick name, "Well you know how you really wanted to know who I liked?" Lily asked. Jamie nodded enthusiastically. "Well…."

Jamie leaned forward in anticipation.

Suddenly, Lily jumped up out of her seat. "I'm not going to tell you!" She shouted triumphantly and much too cheerily, Jamie thought.

"What?" Jamie sputtered. "Why not? I told you my weaknesses!"

Lily tossed the red hair out of her face, beaming. "Because, I don't want to!"

"Well then why did you even come over here to tease me about it? If you didn't have anything to share then you should've just kept your mouth closed!"

"But I do have something to share!" Lily exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "I'm going to Hogmeade weekend with him!" Lily giggled and leaned forward to give Jamie and Rose a big hug. Rose rolled her eyes at her little cousin, but Jamie just looked confused. When she let go, Lily turned and started skipping away to go sit with Moira, but she glanced over her shoulder and saw Jamie looking after her. She giggled and winked, then continued on her way.

Jamie turned back to his best friend, shaking his head. "What is that supposed to mean? Honestly Rose, I don't understand your cousin, she's unlike any girl in this school."

Rose nodded, "Yes she is quite the little freak."

Jamie chucked, but Rose's attention was pulled away from him for a moment when she saw another familiar red head enter the Great Hall. She waved at her little brother and he waved back, though not quite as enthusiastically as usual. Poor kid looked pretty tired.

"Looks like another one suffering from the fourth year syndrome." Jamie commented as Hugo sat down with a couple of his Gryffindor friends.

Rose nodded. She hadn't seen much of her brother since they'd arrived at school—he didn't constantly stalk her the way little Lily did—but he looked okay enough. Though, just in case, she decided that she would have to pay a bit closer attention to him in the future, just to make sure. Mum would be disappointed if she didn't think she was looking after her little brother.

* * *

Scorpius was situated quite comfortably at the end of one of the black leather couches in the Slytherin Common Room. Al was snuggled up close next to him, with his arms wrapped around the blonde's waist and his head leaning on Score's chest. Lysander was sitting cross-legged on the floor by them, leaning against one of the coffee tables. He had removed Scorpius's left shoe from his foot almost immediately after they had sat down and he was now intent on examining it curiously.

The Common Room was mostly lit with the greenish light that filtered down through the lake, though it was getting steadily darker outside so the candles and the fire in the fireplace were slowly rising in intensity. There were quite a few other Slytherins also hanging around the common room, most sitting at tables studying or playing wizarding chess or exploding snap, but there were several other groups of friends simply sitting around and enjoying each other's company like Score, Al, and Ly. Most everyone was quite used to the trio constantly haging out around the common room together. In a way, the three of them were the idols of Slytherin. But in another way, they were also misfits. A noble Malfoy, a savior Potter, and, well, Lysander; their classmates loved them, but at the same time, the trio was untouchable. They had other friends in the house, of course, but no one else had quite broken the sacred inner circle the three had. For some reason, the three just fit together. Well, Albus and Scorpius fit together, no one could quite fathom what made Lysander so dear to the two famous offspring, but he was, so he too was a god of the house, though admittedly a more approachable god.

Naturally though, the three barely noticed any extra attention that may have been afforded to them, too wrapped up as they were in their little bubble. At the present moment, Al and Scorpius were chatting about unimportant things and flirting, while Lysander sat with them, patiently entertaining himself and occasionally joining in conversation when it suited him.

"I don't care, Al. There is no way I'd ever kiss you again if you were a ginger."

"But Sco-_ore_!" Al whined, batting his eyelashes at the boy. "I think I would look nice with red hair. Rose is always complaining about hers, that's why she dyed it you know-"

"And it looks absolutely fabulous." Scorpius interrupted. Al shot him a dirty look though, and he zipped him mouth shut.

"But what if we could just switch our hair colors? Me and Rose I mean. Honestly, Score, you're not even _trying_ to envision it, I think it would be nice."

"You also think that plaids and thick stripes not only match, but can be worn in seasons other than summer."

"Gawd, Score," Al joked. "You sound like your father sometimes, you know that?"

"When have you ever heard my father talk fashion? Besides, he'd never consider plaids or big stripes, those only look right on muggle apparel which you know he does not sport."

"It's not _what _you said, it's the way you said it." Al replied, mockingly.

Score leaned down to lightly bite his boyfriend's ear in an annoyed manner. Al scowled at him, but allowed the blonde to distract him from his teasing.

"I _do_ have a soft spot for gingers." Lysander admitted thoughtfully as though the conversation had been about him the whole time. He had set Score's shoe down and was currently staring off into the distance pensively.

"See!" Al shouted triumphantly. "Ly thinks I'd look good as a ginger."

"Ly said no such thing; all he said was that he fancied red hair. I'd rather him not fancy you."

"Ly baby, do you fancy me, or would you if I had red hair?"

Lysander turned away from the first year whom he had been unknowingly staring down and turned his attention to his friends. "I would fancy you if you gave me a chocolate bar."

"There you go!" Al proclaimed, turning back to Scorpius. "Nothing to fear, I don't share my chocolate!"

"That's for sure." Scorpius grumbled. Al stuck his tongue out at him, but Score's attention was now on his silly blonde friend. "Ly, I didn't realize you were capable of fancying anyone. Is it just redheads with chocolate?"

Ly shook his head, "I'd pretend to fancy anyone with a chocolate bar."

"But what about the gingers?"

"I believe in equal rights for all." Lysander proclaimed confidently, picking up Scorpius's shoe again. "Presuming that all the rest of us have souls, I don't see why gingers wouldn't."

Albus cracked up at that and the girl whom Lysander had been looking _through_ glanced over nervously, worried that the three might be talking about her.

"Ly," Al said when he could breathe again, "You're awesome. Don't let anyone ever tell you other wise."

"Well alright." Lysander responded. "But I don't know how I can control what another person is going to say to me. Perhaps I should carry an extra pair of socks around with me to stuff in his or her mouth before they can say something you wouldn't agree with?"

"Yes Lysander, you should do exactly that." Scorpius answered sarcastically, though he knew Lysander would probably take it literal. And as far as Scorpius was concerned, that was really alright. In fact, he considered for a moment doing exactly the same thing. Though it wouldn't work on his father or mother, perhaps if he shoved a pair of socks in that Creevey's mouth when he was hung over he wouldn't be able to figure out how to remove them? That was a grand idea.

"Whatchya thinking about?" Al asked cutely, referring to the satisfied expression on his blonde's face. He moved around to situate himself more comfortably, propping his chin up on Score's shoulder so that he could see the boy more clearly.

Score chuckled and looked down at Albus, "Just your pretty face."

* * *

**A/N: So I tried a little skipping around in this chapter with what charac****ter we're following; tell me what you think! I originally planned to only follow Rose, but there's so much that's going to be going on soon in everyone's lives that it will be a little easier if we're not learning all of it second-hand like Rose. Plus, I love Scorbus, and you wouldn't really get to see them interact as closely through Rose's perspective. But anyway, plot-wise it would still be doable to just stick with Rose, so please give me your opinions on it! Thanks again everyone for reading!**


	4. The Sands of Time on Reflection

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Harry Potter. Also, the work that is quoted in the first part of this chapter also does not belong to me. It is called My Picture and I believe that it is by Abraham Cowley. I really suggest looking up the entire poem, it's really a good one.**

**A/N: Thank you Lorelai for reminding me that I need to update this and getting me thinking... XD I'm sorry that this chapter took me a bit longer to put up than the other ones. I'm really anxious to just get into the plot already, but there's other things that need to be delt with first. I also feel the need to apologize for all the silly lovey-dovey teenager stuff. I'm generally not one to write such nonsense, but alas, it is essential for the plot. So I promise that there is only one more character who's going to get it bad, and then we're moving on! Huzzah! Enjoy! ^.^**

* * *

Hugo found himself walking alone down one of the deserted corridors of Hogwarts, wandering and thinking to himself.

The fourteen year old boy was about 5'8", though his Weasley relatives kept promising him another growth spurt, assuring the awkward youth that he would be just as tall and gangly as his father some day soon. Also like his father, Hugo sported vibrant orange hair which seemed to be a trait which almost no Weasley could escape. Hugo, unlike his older sister, did not take to over-analyzing appearances, especially his own. Consequently, Hugo's attire was rarely fashionable and quite often wrinkled and askew, as if the boy was perpetually playing and rolling around in the dirt like a small child. Supposedly Hugo's endearing immaturity could have been influenced by his sister's assumed sophisticated demeanor. Hugo did not wish to grow older. He pined for the days when he didn't have to worry about school essays or drama amongst friends. If time could just stop and Hugo could just resurrect the child in his sister who played Quidditch, chased fireflies, and told him scary stories by the light of a smuggled flashlight when the two were supposed to be asleep…If life could return to that blissful stage where living life was simple then Hugo would have been overjoyed.

As it was, Hugo wasn't _un_happy. Far from it. In fact, Hugo was quite content as he walked back to his Common Room alone late on a Friday night. Well, perhaps not _completely_ content, just a little melancholy. Most of Hugo's friends had gone outside to attempt to enjoy the weather before it turned but Hugo had instead decided to visit another friend who wasn't all that fond of the outdoors. Hugo teased her a little about that, of course, but immediately felt guilty because he knew how sensitive and shy the girl was. Hugo had been friendly with the girl since he met her first year, empathizing with her cripple fear of social situations. Hugo was also the shy one, surrounded by his confident and pushy relatives. Actually, if his family wasn't so insistently friendly and nosey, Hugo was sure that he would never spoken at all growing up. He was thankful for that affable demenor that drove his Weasley relations, without it the poor boy wouldn't have ever learned how to reach out to people properly. Of course, he still wasn't all that good at it.

Hugo sighed, lost in his thoughts. Specifically his thoughts about this girl.

The two hadn't been particularly close until last year when Hugo had suffered a slight mental breakdown during finals. His sister was brilliant and all, but she was not an exceptional teacher. Over the summer Hugo and his friend had not been able to correspond, but he had initiated contact again as soon as school started. Somehow, Hugo had become closer with her in just these first few weeks of school then he had ever felt with any of his guy friends. Just a few days ago, Hugo had realized what it was about this girl that was different and that was surprisingly simple: she was not one of his guy friends. Specifically, she was a girl.

Hugo had sneered at himself upon realizing that he was crushing on the girl. He felt positively ridiculous because he had always seen having a crush as being a little ridiculous. Rose and Jamie acted silly and shallow when they had crushes: as if anyone really cared about the color of their socks or what kind of scent they used! Hugo had also picked it up from his sister that his cousin Al was infatuated with a certain friend of his and since then Hugo had noticed that Al was almost never without his crush and when he was he was always much more serious and subdued, as though he wasn't quite comfortable without his human attachment. And now, the hook! Just recently he had learned that Lily had it too! Hugo had watched as his relatives were all bitten one by one by that knifing little love bug and he had looked on with pity, as none of his relatives realized exactly how ridiculous they were being. Unfortunately, Hugo understood now. He hadn't wanted to, but he did. Hugo felt himself feeling unreasonably excited every time he was just going to see his girl! He found himself thinking about her all the time.

Hugo considered what exactly it was that made this girl special to him. He thought that if he could just understand that then he would have the power to get rid of his problem at its root. Unfortunately, Hugo didn't know what it was about this girl that made him want to be around her. While Hugo obviously found her attractive, he would admit that there were a lot of more attractive girls in the school who Hugo could care less about. That truth was that Hugo's girl was rather plain and her personality was extremely bitter. His girl was extremely protective of herself, as if she expected everyone to hurt her. The girl recklessly made enemies with almost everyone in the school.

Except for Hugo.

Why not Hugo?

Hugo recalled their first meeting. He had been too shy and embarrassed to speak, but that was okay, she spoke for him. She accused him of trying to mock her and make fun of her. Hugo hadn't said anything, too afraid of making the girl angrier. Little, good-natured Hugo had just sat down and listened attentively as the girl complained about him. After she had run out of breath and things to say, she cried and Hugo still sat there, feeling guilty that he had made her cry. As the girl's crying died down, that was when she realized that Hugo was still there and she demanded to know what he found so enjoyable about watching her cry. Hugo had replied timidly that he didn't enjoy her tears and felt terrible that he had made her upset. The girl hadn't believed him and Hugo claimed he wanted to be her friend. He kept visiting the emotional girl and eventually they had developed a strange sort of relationship.

Hugo smiled as his reminiscing. He realized that he had always sort of been drawn to this girl. Perhaps it was because he was so intrigued by her point of view on things and life in general. Hugo was sweet-natured and a terrible liar. His scruffy, little boyish appearance enhanced such innocent qualities and consequently there weren't many people he couldn't charm with a smile. But she was one of those few. His girl was sarcastic and mocking, and at some times she could even be cruel. When Hugo smiled at her she didn't reach to pinch his cheeks, she narrowed her eyes in suspicion at what could possibly make him desire maintaining direct eye contact with her, much less give her a friendly look. She saw through Hugo's childlike exterior to the aggravated teenager, filled with angst and anger at being such. While Hugo could never be bitter and quick-witted like her, the feelings she had formed of the solid world around her matched up to Hugo's feelings pretty well.

Hugo paused on the staircase as it slid to a stop. Once again, Hugo wished that time would just stop. Just like the staircase, if it could just pause…

The many portraits around him chattered and skipped around in their frames oblivious to the seconds going by which seemed to pull at Hugo's skin, taunting him and forcing him roughly onward. The pictures had it lucky, he decided. If only he had the luxury of being a mere picture of himself.

_"[..]Ah, be not frighted, if you see,_

The new-soul'd picture gaze on thee,

And here it breathe a sigh or two;

For those are the first things that it will do.

_My rival Image will be then thought blest,_

_And laugh at me as disposed.[...]"_

Hugo reached the top of the staircase, ignorant of when exactly the forceful passage of time had brought him to move again. He breathed a sigh, glaring enviously around at the immortal souls hanging on the walls before the tangible sands of time were back, making his skin witch with impatience, rubbing against him like sandpaper to get his body to move onward, _forward_.

* * *

Roe, Jamie, Al, and Score all sat together Saturday morning. Rose was the most alert of all of them because she had been awake for several hours already getting her homework out of the way. The other three had only recently been awoken. Consequently, it was Rose's chatter which mostly filled the silence at the breakfast table while Jamie and Al sat mindlessly shoveling food into their mouths. Score sat up tall, posture straight and face blank, giving off the appearance that he was lucid, but Rose knew he was half asleep as well. Her parents told her that the confident way Scorpius held himself and appeared indifferent to the things surrounding him was simply a pureblood thing. Talking about blood status in public was all but taboo after the war. The term "mudblood" was mentioned only as a historical label. When Rose had been young, she'd thought discrimination against muggles and muggle-borns was completely extinct. Only as she grew older was she able to sense the way adults tip-toed all _too_ carefully around the subject and that's when Rose realized that the wounds were still sore. Purebloods these days tried to hide their blood status. Some people were infuriated by this and others could care less. Scorpius, for instance, was one of the rarities who had not been brought up being lectured about blood status. The only way Rose could tell Scorpius was pure were his formal mannerisms when in public; which, he had told her, he had not been taught, he had just copied such behaviors subconsciously from his Mum and Dad.

Rose and Al had been surprised when, after being friends with Score for quite awhile, they had learned how close the boy was with his parents, especially his father. The two had heard Rose's parents and Uncle Harry occasionally talk quite badly about Mr. Malfoy and his arrogance and apathy. In fact, when Uncle Harry had found out that Al was good friends with Scorpius, Al's father had pushed him to make sure that the younger Malfoy wasn't mistreated at home. The very idea was laughable to the kids, because Scorpius was his parent's pride and joy. The boy could literally do no wrong.

Scorpius shared _everything_ with his father. Al had always thought that he was close to his own father, but he did have some reserves about talking to his dad about certain subject, especially one that concerned his little pureblooded friend. Scorpius on the other hand had actually gone to his dad for help on how he could get the attention of Al as more than a friend back in third year. Rose had already had great respect for Mr. Malfoy, but her respect increased a tenfold upon discovering that.

Rose ceased her talking and looked up as owls began to swoop in. Her table mates glanced up too, Jamie looked expectant. Jamie had two little sisters at home, Lillian and Colleen. Colleen was only three, but the silly toddler had magic practically oozing out of her and Mr. and Mrs. Creevey were hard pressed to keep the baby safe and incognito in their muggle neighborhood. Lillian was 15, only a year younger than Jamie but unlike her sister, had never shown any signs of magic. Since both of the Creevey parents were muggleborn, they hadn't been taken by surprise that one of their children showed a lack of magic and had actually prepared for it, sending both Jamie and Lillian to muggle schools until it was no longer safe for them. Jamie had been schooled up until second grade, when he started having occasional outbursts of magic. Lillian however went until she was eleven and since she had shown no sign of magic and no wand had called to her at Ollivander's, she had made the decision on her own to stay in the muggle world.

Jamie bounced excitedly as his owl came down dropping two letters onto his lap, one from his parents and another from his sister. Lillian's letter had a small parcel attached to it and Jamie picked that one up first, tossing the parcel over to Scorpius who opened it up eagerly. Scorpius tore open his package while Jamie took out his sister's letter. It was written, per usual, in many different colored inks and Rose admired the big, bubbly print letters the muggle girl wrote in.

"Yes!" Score cried out triumphantly. "Oh my gosh! Jamie, thank you so much, tell your sister that I absolutely love her! No, better yet, just ask her to marry me now."

"Hey!" Al made an indignant noise in the back of his throat and shoved Score off his chair and onto the floor. Scorpius took no notice of this change, too interested in releasing his own colorful "pens" from their annoying plastic wrappings. As soon as he had freed a pen—lime green as it happened to be—Score pulled Al down onto the floor next to him.

"_Hey_!" Al complained half-heartedly.

"Oh shut it, you know that I'm only joking." Score scolded, taking Al's left arm away from him.

"What are you doing?" Al whined.

"I don't have any parchment." Scorpius explained as he started marking on his boyfriend's skin with the gel pen.

Rose chuckled at the pair of them and turned back to Jamie. He was smiling as he read Lillian's letter.

"Oh my gosh!" He exclaimed suddenly, almost dropping his letter into his breakfast. "What a little bitch!"

"What?" Rose asked, a little shocked. She leaned over to try and get a glimpse at what in the letter would create such a reaction.

"Guess where she is going on a school trip_ this_ year!"

Rose shrugged, "No clue."

"New York City! Her trip's for a week over their Christmas break. Can you believe that? _America_! I've never even left Europe! And you know they went to Tokyo last year! Do you know how many times she's been on an airplane? This will be her seventh time flying. How lucky is she?"

"You do realize that you can fly anytime you want, we are magic." Rose pointed out.

Jamie rolled his eyes, "Yeah, but I'd still like to have the experience of going on an airplane. They're so big and so fabulous, if you sit first class that is. And New York City is, like, the center of the universe for muggles in America. It's so fabulous! The most wealthy and sophisticated muggles fly out to New York in their private jets and go shopping at all the high-end retail stores. And what do we have? Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley! What a bore! Why go someplace exotic and exciting when you can jump into your _fireplace_ to get somewhere?" Jamie shook his head.

Rose just shrugged. She loved hearing about all the fantastic different places and people and things that Jamie was exposed to through his sister and muggle relatives, but Rose wasn't too sure that she would be willing to go without magic long enough to see all those cool places she heard about. But Jamie did make it all seem so wonderful.

"I'll tell you what," Rose said, leaning closer to Jamie excitedly as she started formulating a plan in her head. "We'll start researching other counties and what sort of sights their wizarding worlds have to offer and when we graduate we'll go on a huge tour all around the world and see everything we can!"

Jamie clapped his hands together excitedly and attacked his best friends, hugging her forcefully. "Oh, Rose, do you promise me!"

Rose laughed, nodding, but was cut off by a shout across the table from her where Score and Al were struggling on the floor. Al was holding Score's pens hostage from him and Score did not look pleased by it.

"Albus Severus…" Rose started out in a warning tone which she occasionally heard her Aunt Ginny use on the boys.

"He branded me!" Albus proclaimed, showing his cousin the offending arm.

Jamie erupted in laughter besides her and Rose clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from doing the same thing. On Al's left arm "Property of Scorpius Malfoy" had been scrawled in loopy elegant type in lime green.

"It's just muggle ink, Al. It will wash off!" Score insisted, pouting because the boy had confiscated his gel pens.

"Everyone will see it!" Al insisted.

"I _want_ everyone to see it; that was the point of writing it on your _arm_, silly."

"But Lily will see it!"

"Well I doubt Lily's interested in you that way anyway so I don't think that she will be all that disappointed."

Al glared at Score and Score leaned forward to lay a kiss on the dark-haired boy's lips. Al momentarily forgot his anger and relaxed against Score. The pureblooded Slytherin wasted no time in grabbing his pens back from his friend and jumped to his feet.

"Hey! No Fair!" Al complained.

"Malfoys don't play fair, Potter, they play to win." The blonde drawled haughtily. Al reached out to grab Scorpius's leg, but Score dodged and started running away laughing. Al jumped up and ran after him, shouting profanities.

"Let's not take them with us, eh?" Jamie suggested and Rose nodded in agreement.

* * *

Lysander sat in a rarely-used classroom, a cauldron set up in front of him. The flame beneath the cauldron was low, just barely keeping the electric blue contents warm. He was supposed to be keeping watch over it, but his attention had been ensnared by one of the portraits on the wall.

Actually, it was the _only_ portrait on the wall of this particular classroom. Inside the frame was nothing. It was just a black painting, which is why it had caught the boy's attention. Lysander wondered what the purpose of such a picture was. No one ever walked through it from other frames. He wondered if perhaps the subject of the painting had been lonely and abandoned its frame in favor of another. Or, perhaps, the original picture had been damaged all those years ago at the Great Battle and it was still waiting, forgotten, for repairs.

"Lysander!"

Lysander turned and saw himself through a mirror, hastily stirring the mixture in the cauldron before it could begin to bubble.

"Damn it, I thought you were watching it!" His reflection complained, looking up to meet his eyes.

"I was…" Lysander answered, unfazed by the harsh tone of his opposite image. "And then I wasn't."

Lysander's reflection smiled and rolled his eyes. The two mirror images looked almost exactly alike, except for that the left side of Lysander's face was marred by a white scar whereas the reflection's face was perfect. Lysander's reflection looked at that scar for a minute, smile faltering, but quickly caught himself and looked away. Lysander did not notice. He had gone back to pondering the empty portrait.

"Here," Lorcan said, emptying all sorts of interesting ingredients for the potion on to the table. He emptied everything out until he found what he was looking for n the form of a brightly colored package. He tossed it to his brother, who grinned widely.

"Burst stars!" Lysander exclaimed happily, removing a pink star-shaped candy from its wrappings and popping it into his mouth, completely poised even when the candy exploded like fireworks as it mixed with his saliva.

"You're welcome." Lorcan said, smiling. Lysander sucked on the explosive candy happily, watching as Lorcan organized the incidents he'd pulled form his pockets. The electric blue muck grew warm and Lysander stirred it so it wouldn't bubble.

Lorcan eyed the mixture curiously. "When am I allowed to ask exactly what this is going to be?" He asked.

Lysander shrugged, "Whenever you want."

"Well yes, but when will you actually tell me."

Lysander regarded the mixture curiously, his head cocked to one side, before answering. "I don't know. I'm not sure what it's going to do just yet."

"you came up with it! You researched different potions for weeks. You based it on Veritaserum, Amortentia, Felix Felices, and god only knows what else! What exactly are you trying to create. What do you _hope_ that it will do?"

Lysander thought hard on that for a moment. "I want it to help people."

Lorcan blinked at his brother, but gave up trying to get a straight answer from him. The two simply stared at the potion for awhile. Lysander looked unconcerned, but Lorcan had a feeling that they were waiting for something.

"Ah!' Lysander said after awhile. Lorcan started, looking at the potion for a sign of change, but it stayed the same as ever. "There we go!" Lysander exclaimed happily at the stable potion.

"What?" Lorcan asked. "What happened?"

Lysander rolled his eyes at his brother, "Well nothing yet, silly! Did you get the bezoar?"

Lorcan nodded, holding the stone up for his brother. Lysander nodded approvingly. "Go ahead and drop it in." He instructed.

Lorcan did as he was told and watched as the mucky mix pulled the bezoar down into the potion.

"A, B, C, D, E, F, G…"

Lysander began to sing.

Lorcan watched his twin, showing his amusement only as a quick smirk on his lips. Lysander went though the alphabet three times before waving his wand. The cauldron was suddenly engulfed by flames. Lorcan took a step back, slightly alarmed, but relaxed when he heard Ly start to sing "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" and pop another Burst Star into his mouth.

After only one verse, Lysander vanished the fire. The mix was now an icy blue color and bubbles came racing out from the bezoar.

"Hmm," Lysander said, leaning forward and moving to stick his pointer finger into the potion. Lorcan caught his hand before he could touch it.

"What are you doing?" Lorcan demanded.

"The bezoar… that was supposed to dissolve it."

"So you're going to just stick your hand in there and let your hand dissolve instead?" Lorcan asked incredulously.

Lysander nodded, "Good point." He said, wrapping his hand around Lorcan's wrist and pulling it forward so that Lorcan's finger dipped into the icy blue potion instead. Lorcan shouted and pulled back, afraid, but the potion remained docile on his skin.

"Fuck! What did you do that for!" Lorcan demanded as his brother took his wrist again. Lysander did not answer, preferring to observe the liquid on Lorcan's finger. He leaned over and licked the potion off Lorcan's finger. Lorcan tried not to grimace in disgust as Ly ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth, carefully tasting the mixture.

"Mm, it tastes a little minty."

Lorcan shook his head, wiping his finger off on his pants. Lysander was scribbling notes on a piece of parchment with a strange looking stick that wrote in purple.

"So, what are we going to do with the rest of the ingredients you wanted?" Lorcan asked.

"Bag them. It looks like the bezoar won't be completely dissolved for a few more days yet and we can't add anything else until it is."

Lorcan nodded as he packed up the incidents and hid the cauldron in one of the cupboards around the room. Lysander finished his notes. It drove Lorcan crazy this not knowing what to do or the concept behind the potion he and his brother were secretly inventing. That, he supposed, was the Ravenclaw in him, dying to know all the little secrets of the world. His brother was the opposite. Lysander_ liked_ not knowing. He enjoyed the mystery of it all.

"You coming?" Lorcan asked once everything was packed up.

Lysander shook his head. "I want to look at the painting."

Lorcan's eyes searched for the painting Ly spoke of and he found the black picture on the wall. He smirked, realizing that that had been what distracted Lysander earlier when he was supposed to be watching the potion. He considered giving his brother a hint at what it was, but realized the reason Ly had not experimented and found out already was because he liked speculating first.

"Don't hide from the world for too long," Lorcan warned as he left and Lysander nodded, eating another Burst Star.

* * *

Lily was perched on top of a table in a small alcove near the entrance to the Ravenclaw Common Room. Moira sat next to her, feet resting on a chair. It was a small little room tucked out of the way. There was a clear view of the hallway room where the girls sat and though they were in view of anyone who might happen to glance their way, most people just passed the alcove with disinterest. Moira had used this particular alcove when she was a first and second year as a place to study because she had been intimidated by some of the older students who hung out in the Common Room. Now Moira and Lily used the space to hang out just the two of them and people watch since the hallway quite often got a lot of traffic on the weekends.

"Oh my god," Lily spoke up quietly. Even though they had cast silencio around them, she still felt the need to speak quietly out of habit. "Check it out! Looks like Bert Macmillan got a girl friend!"

Moira looked as a slightly chubby boy with light tussled hair and a lot of acne walked slowly pas the alcove, whispering something in the ear of a girl with smooth long brown hair.

"She looks pretty enough from this vantage point." Moira commented, shifting to try and get a better view of the girl's face. "Can you tell who she is?"

Lily shook her head, "Nah, I only see the back of her head."

The two girls watched as the couple retreated away from them.

"Good for Bert," Moira said, speaking a little louder now that the two were further away from them.

Lily nodded, "He is a bit of a sweetie, isn't he? I feel bad people pick on him. I remember Rose tried to sell him some kind of muggle drug last year that she said would help him get rid of his acne. She called it A or E or something. Honestly, I don't know how that girl does it."

Moira laughed, "You do realize that Rose is slightly crazy. Actually, I'd say your whole family is. For once something my father taught me is correct!"

Lily chuckled, "How is good old Gregory these days?"

Moira groaned, "Dumb as a doornail."

"Uh, I think you need to study your muggle studies a little harder. I'm pretty sure that the saying is 'dead' as a doornail." Lily shook her head in mock disappointment.

"Whatever, Mum and Dad don't even know I'm in muggle studies. I'm pretty sure that they'd kill me if they knew." Moira sighed. "They're a dying breed. I wish my parents were more like the Malfoys. Father actually tried to arrange a marriage between me and Scorpius! Mr. Malfoy turned him down, thank god. You know that Mr. Malfoy has given Scorpius permission to marry whomever he _wants_, regardless of blood or name? Most of the _smart_ purebloods are trying to diversify their lines now. But not my parents, no! I'm obligated to marry a pureblood and have lots of stupid-ass hemophilic kids. I swear, as soon as I turn 17 I am running far away from home.'

Lily patted Moira's shoulder consolingly. "Don't worry, you can always come live with me! I'm sure Mum and Dad wouldn't mind!"

Moira laughed, "Why not? Substitute one kind of crazy for another!"

But Moira still perked up. No matter how much she teased Lily about her dysfunctional famous family, she knew they were a proper family and she would be better off with them than anyone else. Rose was about to comment on such but Moira sat up straighter and put a finger to her lips as voices approached.

"Why do you fucking _care_ who I go out with Lorcan?"

Lily blushed as Moira poked her side teasingly as they recognized a familiar voice.

"Because," Lorcan answered. He sounded a lot like Lysander, but his tone was always more heavy and serious whereas Lysander's was lighter and more airy as though he was calling from some very far away place. "I just don't think that you should go out with her."

Lily and Moira leaned to the side so that they could see out the opening of the alcove as Marc Barbary whirled around so he was face to face with Lorcan.

"What's this, Lore, are you possibly a little _jealous_?"

Lorcan snorted, pushing him out of the way. "Forget it. You don't care about anyone other than yourself."

Marc followed after his angry Ravenclaw friend, still trying to talk, but the boy's voices were too muffled to make anything out as they got further and further away. Lily wished that the alcove were bigger and she could continue to follow them and heard the rest of their conversation. She turned to Moira with wide eyes and saw that her friend looked just as shocked as she felt.

"They were fighting." Moira stated simply. "About _you_."

Lily nodded slowly, "I… I don't even know Lorcan that well. I only really know who he is because Mum and Dad are so close with Luna and Al's friends with Ly."

"But it sounds like he likes you!" Moira insisted.

Lily shook her head, "I... I wouldn't think so... I can't belive he was fighting with Marc like that."

"Come on," Moira said, grabbing her friend's hand and pulling her down off the small desk they'd been sitting on. "Enough people watching, you need to process this."

Lily nodded as Moira checked that the coast was clear and then pulled Lily out of the alcove. The girls walked silently for a little ways, headed away from the Ravenclaw Common Room in favor of Gryffindor at a time like this.

"Hi Lily! Hi Moira!"

The two girls looked as Lily's brother Al walked down the hallway towards them with his best friend Scorpius. Scorpius smiled and waved at the girls as well. Lily smiled, but stopped walking, squinting to examine Scorpius's face. Moira burst out laughing, earning a half-hearted glare from the Malfoy.

"See you girls later, okay?" Al called after them, also trying to hold in laughter.

Lily turned to look at Moira, who shook her head in amusement.

"Why does Scorpius's face belong to my brother?"

"Lord only knows, Lily."

* * *

**A/N: So there's the chapter! I finally introduced Lorcan, which I am really excited about. I think I'm going to like writing him. Please review?**


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